CHOGM delegates journey down the longest stock route in the world

International delegates at the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will get an insight into how art is providing a channel for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to share their stories and portray historical events through their eyes thanks to a groundbreaking exhibition.

The National Museum of Australia’s (NMA) highly acclaimed exhibition Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, will travel to Perth in October to feature during CHOGM. The exhibition tells the story of the Canning Stock Route's impact on Aboriginal people through the works of senior and emerging artists.

First surveyed in 1906, the Canning Stock Route runs almost 2000km, from Halls Creek to Wiluna in Western Australia.

“The development of this ultimately unsuccessful cattle route dramatically affected the lives of Aboriginal people,” Head of the NMA’s Curatorial and Research Division, Dr Michael Pickering said.

“For many years, the story of the stock route was represented as a white man’s story – this exhibition allows us to recognise that the story goes back much further and is held in the hearts and minds of the Aboriginal people of the region.

“There are important stories in this exhibition. Stories of people, places, histories (both sacred and secular), the clash of cultures, survival and resilience. It reminds us that the artefact does not, in itself, make history – history, sacred and secular, is made, experienced, and told by people.

“Yiwarra Kuju tells the Aboriginal perspective through stories, art and objects. It tells of Aboriginal history, of personal experiences, and of events and beliefs that shaped the lives of individuals and of their societies. The exhibition focuses on presenting the voices of real people, telling their stories, their experiences through their art and objects.”

The exhibition is the result of an extensive collaboration between the NMA, FORM (a not for profit organisation which advocates for and develops creativity in Western Australia), and its nine partner art centres stretching from the Pilbara to the Kimberley in Western Australia. 

Dr Pickering said that while many museums develop exhibitions under sponsorship from external agencies, the day–to-day relationship between donors and museum is usually somewhat independent.

“The relationship between FORM and the NMA is different, in that it sees a much closer collaboration, one in which the research done by the FORM team comes together with the museological resources of the National Museum to produce not only a significant collection but also associated exhibitions,” Dr Pickering said.

“This collaboration will stand as a model for future museum practice and research.

“The Museum is pleased its exhibition had been chosen to represent Australian cultural heritage at CHOGM. Yiwarra Kuju promotes national and international awareness of Australia’s Aboriginal cultural heritage.”

After CHOGM, the exhibition is scheduled to travel to Sydney where it will be on display at the Australian Museum from late December 2011.

Touring and Outreach Program sharing art with communities around the country

The exhibition’s tour to Perth is funded by the Australian Government’s National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach (NCITO) Program, which supports Australia’s national collecting institutions to tour significant exhibitions across the country, including to regional areas.

The program aims to ensure that Australians are able to enjoy our unique national collections no matter where they live. Exhibitions tour to every state and territory and showcase the diversity of Australian collections.

Since the program’s inception in 2009, 25 exhibitions featuring diverse collections of visual art, historical material and archival material have been supported, including a number that have toured to a range of locations across Australia, from Tweed River in New South Wales to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and Bunbury in Western Australia. 

This is a dynamic program – already this year Arts Minister Simon Crean has announced over $1.15 million to support 14 new NCITO projects.

Other touring exhibitions

In addition to Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, other exhibitions funded in 2011-12 include:

• National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s Sounds of Australia Cooee Cabaret, a family cabaret show that weaves together iconic Australian songs and sound recordings drawn from the Archive’s Sounds of Australia registry;
• Museum of Australian Democracy’s Marnti Warjanga exploring the democratic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Pilbara, Western Australia;
• Australian National Maritime Museum’s On Their Own: Britain’s Child Migrants  focusing on the child migration schemes of the 19th and 20th centuries;
• National Portrait Gallery’s Beyond the Self: Contemporary Portraiture from Asia which will showcase international contemporary portraiture from Australia’s Asian neighbours;
• National Library of Australia’s Patrick White: Eye of the Storm including objects and ephemera not previously publicly displayed;
• National Gallery of Australia’s Fred Williams Retrospective, the first significant exhibition since 1980 focusing on this iconic Australian artist; and
• Bundanon Trust’s Arthur Boyd: The Erotic in Nature examining the erotic, death and religion in Boyd’s landscape works.